Geoffrey Howe

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Geoffrey Howe, (Richard Edward Geoffrey Howe, Baron Howe of Aberavon), Welsh-born British politician (born Dec. 20, 1926, Port Talbot, Wales—died Oct. 9, 2015, Idlicote, Warwickshire, Eng.), precipitated the downfall of Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher when on Nov. 13, 1990, he presented a devastating indictment of Thatcher in his resignation speech to the House of Commons after having spent more than a decade as one of her closest supporters, first as shadow chancellor of the Exchequer (1975–79) and then in her cabinet as chancellor (1979–83), foreign secretary (1983–89), and leader of the House and deputy prime minister (1989–90). The public “betrayal” by the normally soft-spoken Howe shocked Thatcher and emboldened her party challengers, and by the end of that month, she had stepped down. Howe attended Winchester College on a scholarship and studied law (1948–51) at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He was called to the bar in 1952 and was made a queen’s counsel in 1965, the year after he was first elected to Parliament. He lost his seat in the 1966 general election but in 1970 returned to the House of Commons (where he remained until he was advanced to the House of Lords in 1992). Howe held a variety of posts under Prime Minister Edward Heath (1970–74). In the 1975 contest to succeed Heath as the Conservative Party leader, he lost to Thatcher, who named him shadow chancellor. Howe’s policies included deficit reduction and closer relations with the U.S. and with the European Community. He clashed with Thatcher, however, over her increasingly dictatorial style and her opposition to Britain’s joining the European exchange-rate mechanism, among other policies. After leaving office he examined his political career in the memoir Conflict of Loyalty (1994). Howe was knighted in 1970, created a life peer in 1992, and appointed a Companion of Honour in 1996. In 2001 his wife, Elspeth, a former chairman of the Broadcasting Standards Commission, was made a life peer in her own right as Baroness Howe of Idlicote.